Post Length has nothing to do with it

I have heard it said before that musicians (and bloggers in general) should keep their blog posts short because they engage better. I don’t buy in to that. I think there are other factors that (should) play a part in determining the length of a post.

What Are Your Goals?

First of all, you have to consider your goals with the blog entry you’re about to publish. Are you looking to get a few quick shares, likes and comments or are you posting for SEO benefits, search engine relevance or authority? Are you posting to inform, engage, entertain, converse or for another purpose?

These questions should sooner determine the length of your post than feeble promises of engagement.

For Engagement

I think if you’re looking for quick engagement (likes, comments and shares), you might as well just post photos to Facebook or Google+. People like George Takei and Guy Kawasaki have done exceptionally well with this. Further to the point, use a tool like Instagram to capture photos quickly and cross-post them to Facebook and Twitter.

However, even if engagement is your goal, there’s no rule saying that your blog posts need to be shorter; just look at Pat Flynn. He may not be a musician, but his longer, engrossing posts tend get shared and commented on plenty, thank you very much.

For SEO Benefits

Google has a ranking system they use to determine relevant content. What they determine as relevant will appear towards the top of their search results. If you’re posting for relevance, your blog post should be informative, keyword rich, relevant to the topic and accurate.

For Authority

If you want to establish yourself as an authority on a subject, you can’t bargain with the price. Longer posts are virtually inevitable. Armed with some of the aforementioned SEO strategies, you will also want to infuse your posts with personal experience, testimonials or outside opinion (if applicable), external resources and related topics.

Another advantage of this type of post is that it tends to remain relevant for longer and has more staying power than something that is soon outdated.

For Discussion

A medium length post seems to be the ticket for starting conversation and discussions. You don’t want to present so much information that your audience has nothing to add, but you don’t want to be so vague that the topic is not clearly defined. Even Facebook discussions are often based around longer blog posts or news items.

Blogging for Musicians

Of course, not all musicians are going to be concerned with SEO or authority. Blogging as a musician is mostly for the purpose of keeping one’s site fresh and engaging your established audience.

However, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be used to grow one’s audience as well. If you do it right, you could attract more blog and newsletter subscribers by publishing quality content.

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David Andrew Wiebe has built an extensive career in songwriting, live performance, recording, session playing, production work, investing, and music instruction. In addition to helping musicians unlock their full potential, he also continues to maintain a performance schedule with Long Jon Lev and Adrenalize. If you'd like to be notified whenever the blog is updated, click here to subscribe.